are treated equitably by the superiors and whether there is cohesion between the subordinates and
their superiors. These conditions are likely to be determined by the level of interpersonal trust be-
tween the subordinates and their superiors. Hence, trust in the superior may be positively associated
with organisational commitment. We therefore propose that:
H4 Trust in the superior is positively related to
organisational commitment path 3-4.
3. Method
Data were collected by a survey questionnaire. The sample was selected from employees in the
health services sector and comprised all the 251 managers from the health services sector of an
Australian state. While early studies on procedural fairness were concentrated mostly in legal and po-
litical settings, more recent research had found the effects of procedural fairness to be observable in
any organisational settings Leventhal, 1980. As employee performance evaluation is an integral
aspect of the management control systems of work organisations, performance evaluation procedures
are likely to be one of the most ubiquitous features of organisations. Employees in the health services
sector are therefore just as likely to be subject to performance evaluation process as employees in
other organisational settings. Hence, a sample drawn from the health services sector is as appro-
priate as any sample drawn from other sectors where employee performance evaluation occurs.
The names and addresses of managers were drawn from the Health Department Exchange
E-mail Global Addresses.
1
A questionnaire was mailed to each of these 251 managers. Each ques-
tionnaire was accompanied by a covering letter, assuring the managers confidentiality of the data
collected, and a prepaid reply-addressed envelope for the questionnaire to be returned directly to the
researchers. A follow-up letter was sent to each of those managers who had not responded after three
weeks of the initial mailing out of the question- naire.
Six questionnaires were returned unopened and were removed from the sample. Of the remaining
sample of 245, a total of 112 were returned. Two of these were not usable, as the focal variables were
not fully completed. This left the study with 110 usable responses which constitutes a response rate
of 45. In order to test for non-response bias, the procedures suggested by Oppenheim 1992 were
used. These involved splitting the sample into two halves. T-tests were undertaken for the variables
studied to ascertain if there were any significant differences between the responses from the first
half of the sample earlier responses and those from the second half of the sample later respons-
es. Oppenheim 1992 suggests that if later re- sponses differ significantly from earlier ones,
non-response bias may be present. The lack of sig- nificant differences found for any of the variables
in this study suggests the absence of a response bias.
The mean age of the respondents was 47.9 years. The respondents had held their current positions
for an average of 5.8 years and had 12.8 years of experience in their area of responsibility. They
were responsible for an average of 59 employees. Seventy-eight percent of them had either a tertiary
or a professional qualification. These demograph- ic data indicate that the respondents were general-
ly highly qualified and experienced managers who held very responsible positions.
4. Measurement instruments
